Yorktown Waterfront Deal Near Completion

Vote To Take Place Tuesday

YORK COUNTY — A new agreement between York County Board of Supervisors and the Yorktown Trustees gives the county permission to develop parts of the Yorktown waterfront owned by the trustees.

As the county continues its $12.3 million effort to make the waterfront more of an economical and recreational center, there's a need to update the 14- year-old agreement, said county attorney James Barnett.

Supervisors are expected to approve the agreement at a meeting Tuesday. A majority of the trustees, who own the land, endorsed the contract this week.

"It doesn't require the county to do this, it allows the county the right if it so chooses,'' Barnett said of the agreement.

When the York County Board of Supervisors and the Yorktown Trustees last updated the agreement in 1987, the contract detailed the county's duties for maintenance, police patrol and lighting of the waterfront.

Under this new agreement, the county's responsibilities for the maintenance of the waterfront stay the same. But it also allows the county to develop along the waterfront. Before the county prepares to spend millions of dollars to renovate and revitalize the waterfront by adding a bigger pier, creating a place for shops and restaurants and other major changes, it wants to have the trustees' OK, Barnett said

The two parties began negotiating a new agreement in 1998. The negotiations took awhile, in part, because of the complexity of the agreement.

The county wants the contract to last for the next 30 or so years, Barnett said.

Of the five members of the Yorktown Trustees, two did not sign the agreement at a meeting Monday, said Trustee Howard Clayton, one of the non-signers. Clayton declined to say why he didn't approve of the document. Trustees Chairman Gregory Brezinski also didn't sign the agreement. He also declined comment. The three other trustees, the ones who did sign the agreement, could not be reached Friday.

Creation of the Yorktown Trustees -- or "ffeoffees" --dates back to the late 1600s when the state was encouraging the economic development of towns throughout Colonial Virginia was encouraged. The Colonial government gave land grants to about 20 "ffeoffees" in Virginia with the mission of selling and plotting land to create towns. The Yorktown Trustees were given 50 acres to create an active town with residents and businesses.

Over time, all the other trustees in Virginia towns sold their land rights, but the Yorktown Trustees stayed intact. The trustees sold most of the 50 acres but they still have land power over the Yorktown waterfront. The trustees are independent of the county and the Circuit Court of York County appoints the five-member board. The trustees have no taxing authority but are the owners and managers of the land.

The county plans to complete its Yorktown Master Plan by 2007, meeting the deadline for the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown and the 225th anniversary of the British surrender at Yorktown in 2006.

Kara Urbanski can be reached at 229-3784 or by e-mail at kurbanski@dailypress.com